Submit: Great giffgaff Ideas

[#1]

Simple really, put an outgoing VOIP gateway on the giffgaff network, accessible by normal gsm voice call with a short dialing prefix and routed to one or more VOIP providers. Pretty simple to also gate into Skype once a server is in place.

Should reduce giffgaffs costs more than enough to cover most international VOIP charges and be a win/win: gg preserve profits, we get cheaper calls and if gg bundles in the VOIP charges we can avoid having individual VOIP accounts, true PAYG VOIP. Using a voice call this way is good for call quality and works on any phone.

Though it breaks my 'simple tariff' preference, as a prefix code its something users opt into and I wouldn't have any problem with gg sharing any cost reduction

Sure there's some scope of incoming VOIP calls and even heading towards reduced cost or free gg<->VOIP calls as well

[#2]

I'm not quite sure whether or not you hope this to be free of charge for the access call, or still 8 pence a minute.

At the moment, giffgaff has 8p a minute international calls to USA and Canada and western European and Australia New Zealand India and Pakistan landlines, and 16p to mobiles of the latter group, all of which would be hard to beat if the access call is charged.

It would be nice if they could consider extending the range of reasonably priced destinations, but that's a slightly different issue.

And how would the Skype access be set up - like Skype Lite or iSkoot, also using an access number?

[#3]

I'm thinking: worst case its the 8p/min + the VOIP rate and you're just getting some convenience and a better call quality. For a lot of the planet that would still be a big win for users.

However, the cost of providing a call will often be lower overall (sometimes massively so) leaving scope to charge less. That could mean adding more countries to the 8p/16p lists. It could mean directly reflecting the underlying cost of each call - gg's normal share of the 8p + the VOIP rate. It would definitely end £1/min monstrositys unless you're calling a satphone!

Makes no sense for anywhere in the 8p band but there's a lot of the planet that's not covered.

It would be nice to see savings on domestic calls passed on to users but I'm not holding my breath, carriers will only do that when forced to. I'll just carry on reminding myself to use the IP line to call landlines @.5p/min, the mobile to mobiles and never to mix them

[#4]

I wouldn't be that interested if it gets charged at 8p/min + the VoIP rate as I can already do that with my Asterisk box. I have an 0800 pointed to my Asterisk box with a section that allows me to get an outside line through Asterisk, allowing me to pay 1.5p/min for receiving a call on my 0800 number and 1p/min for most local, national and international destinations. A little complex, but it works nevertheless.

[#5]

Hi all, We are considering the possibilities when it comes to VOIP gateways and are currently working with Ja Jah to see what we can do. At the moment we have no set plans however, nor a date of implementation if we ever get that far. Hence this idea has its status set to 'Under Consideration'. Cheers, Vincent

[#6]

I think this is a great idea.. I don't even really care if it costs 8p or 0p - it's just convenient to be able to call skype numbers and maybe also sip addresses without having to go to a computer.

[#7]

I'd suggest looking at working with localphone.com as an alternative to Ja Jah - rates are much cheaper, and they provide itemised billing, top up type system, and so far I've found line quality to be very good.

One approach might be to have a single dashboard for managing both giffgaff and localphone accounts - users can also set contact numbers for overseas calls - localphone then provide you with a local landline number to call to get through to that contact - e.g. an 0207 number which then gets routed through to Japan.   Second stage would be the 'ideal' of seamless integration - i.e. if choose to, an international number >8p per min gets routed through localphone VOIP.  

[#8]

Localphone aren't too reliable for interconnecting with other SIP operators. If gg want to just handoff all traffic handling they may be a poor choice. If gg deal with SIP URI's at their gateway (via sipbroker) it wouldn't matter who handles VOIP to landline/mobile transit but forces more work on gg. Probably a good idea handing off as much of the work to professionals.

Done seamlessly only gg need to know who provides VOIP transit. If there has to be a simpler 1st stage I could live with gg just routing to my choice of SIP account, not sure many others would be happy though and it would get messy real fast!

[#9]

The thought re localphone service is simply using a redirect prefix to VOIP local landline at the giffgaff gateway.

- You dial an international number on your giffgaff mobile (e.g. +816 555 5555 44).

- Giffgaff gateway recognises it is an international number and that country dialed is outside 8p min charges.

- Giffgaff gateway adds a redirect prefix, so re-routing this to localphone's 'calling card' UK landline access telephone number (0207 183 4770) - appending 1 for access + the international number dialed onto the local line number  (with pauses etc.). No need even for PIN number if localphone recognises that this is being dialed from you registered mobile number.

- You get charged 8p min for the giffgaff call to the localphone UK landline + localphone VOIP charge to country called.

No SIP URI's to deal with at the gg gateway or other SIP work involved for giffgaff  It should be straightforward to set up this redirect prefix in the gateway for certain international calls, so as to work as if the user had dialed this calling card landline + 1 + international number manually. 

Stage 2 would be to add localphone top ups and itemised billing integrated into giffgaff dashboard, and registering the gg mobile number to the localphone account.  That might then offer a quick and easy VOIP option - up to user whether to opt for this or not.

I'd also be happy with gg routing to choice of SIP account.  Perhaps allow user to set up VOIP telepone access number redirect prefixes to route to for premium international calls dialled by them - though not all of these would offer integrated topups and billing reporting as might be nice to have.  In what way do you think it would get messy?  (or is that concern to do with complexity if involving SIP URI's?).

However there could be advantages going with just one provider for all gg VOIP (while being free to switch to another by simple change of redirect prefix in the system).  Wholesale VOIP rates for gg users might be negotiated and passed on with lower VOIP call costs.

Key requirements are VOP service which offers good quality (and has scalable capacity for gg users), charges PAYG (no monthly service charge), has UK local access number, offers competitive VOIP rates, and can ideally work with gg to integrate topups, billing and reporting.  (And for gg to be able to do this type of re-routing at gateway with redirect prefix).  Not sure if SIP interconnection would be an issue in this approach (?) - and there may be better alternatives to localphone - but seems like such a redirect prefix to local VOIP landline connection approach could be relatively simple as illustrated using localphone as example.  It may not be the most technically sophisticated SIP-purist approach, but could be quick, easy low-cost 'number 8 wire' solution for a VOIP gateway.  Depending on the gg gateway, it could be done very quickly and easily - and little technical difficulty in then also integrating topups, itemised billing etc.

[#10]

@paul_shirley could you expand on why you think we are not reliable for SIP interconnect?  

If there is anything getting in the way of getting things up and running for giffgaff users I'd be more than happy to take a look and see what I can do.

Just on a sidenote, we are rolling out iNum support shortly, currently you can make calls to iNum numbers via Localphone, and we are working to get iNum Incoming Numbers for your VoIP accounts.  Hopefully this will help for interconnecting to other providers.  Also we are working on getting SIP forwarding available for Incoming Number accounts.

--

Darrell

Localphone.

[#11]

<<could you expand on why you think we are not reliable for SIP interconnect?>>

Simply that I had very inconsistent results trying to make SIP to SIP calls out through the Localphone VOIP gateway to other SIP networks. Wasn't worth following it up because it doesn't matter which account I make those calls from and Localphone does what I need it to.

I had other problems trying to use Sipdroid from my mobile but I'm inclined to blame that on Sipdroid not Localphone!

I understand the VOIP service is pretty new so those problems could be gone now, dialing landlines/mobiles of course works well